His eyebrows shot into his hairline. “He/she?”
“I wasn’t sure,” I admitted and handed him the book.
“Robin’s a man.” Ha, I knew it.
As he flipped through the pages, I scanned his apartment. Like Fort Tryon, this small space suited Samuel. Sofia’s handiwork was everywhere—warm colors, iron accents, even a few scented candles that had never been lit. There was a digital piano I’d never seen before, and he’d placed our guitars next to it. Mixed in with newer pieces of furniture were our flea market finds from Boulder. The woven screen we’d used as a room divider now separated the living room from an office space. The mismatched end tables I’d sanded and painted blue were tucked against either side of Samuel’s sofa. There was the stained glass floor lamp I’d mooned over at an art festival. Samuel had returned the next day and bought it for me, despite his measly copywriter’s salary.
I now knew he’d never touched his inheritance, not even to buy me things. But I was glad he hadn’t—we didn’t have much money then, but our resourcefulness made for some beautiful memories.
I slipped from his arms and ran my fingers along the intricate lamp shade. Its soft glow flecked colors across an array of framed photos. I studied them and saw they, too, were from the studio apartment. Two children clinging to their fathers’ necks…making fish-faces at the Denver Aquarium…Samuel with a baseball bat slung over his shoulder, me in an oversized jersey that hit my knees. Even the picture of Samuel’s graduation I’d found in his Lyons bedroom now rested on one of the end tables—its original home. Next to it was a five-by-seven of—gulp—our wedding.
A lump formed in my throat. The only way I hadn’t drowned was to hide my photo albums beneath the dust ruffle of a new bed, surrounded by new things…albeit, in a familiar city. Samuel had done the opposite. He’d surrounded himself with familiar things in a new city.
Samuel answered my unasked questions. “Mom put our old things in storage for me. When I finally got my own place, I had it shipped to Manhattan.”
“It must have cost a fortune to ship. Much more than it’s worth.”
“It was worth it.”
I felt his warmth behind me. His fingertips grazed my neck as he pushed my tangled hair over my shoulder. I dragged my palm up his forearm and circled his wrist, cuffing him to me. A thought flitted through my head—I hadn’t seen the Rolex Caroline gave him for a long time, not since he left Lyons after Danita’s wedding.
“It must have been awkward when you brought a date over,” I whispered. “Can’t really pass the gal in those photos off as your sister…especially the wedding picture.”
“I’ve never brought a date here,” he murmured.
“What about Caroline?” I blurted, then internally smacked myself when his hands froze.
“Caro’s been here before, but not as a date.” I felt his scowl turn into a smile against my neck. “She was seconds away from calling my psychiatrist. Quite an image, isn’t it? The tortured writer, alone, save for the pictures of his past. The last remnants of love, a dusty shrine hung upon his wall for all posterity…or the next tenant, at least.”
I turned and gave him a wry grin. “Good grief, are you a writer? I never knew.” Trailing a finger down his chest, I hooked it under his belt. He flinched, but in a good way. “So, tortured writer. Think you could scrounge up some dinner in this dusty shrine, or do you only live on purple prose?”
His eyes widened at my mocking and he answered me with a bruising kiss that, I swear, made my lips go numb.
He always did know how to make me shut up.
Samuel got the first crack at BrownStoners.
A small television mounted above his dresser quietly aired reruns of some low-budget sci-fi show, but he was engrossed in the manuscript resting against his thighs.
Clutching my bath towel around me with one hand, I tried not to steal glances at his shapely torso as I dug through my suitcase, hunting for my camisole and sleep shorts. I found them at the bottom and dangled them from my fingers, frowning at the wrinkled mess.
He watched me with murky eyes.
Okay, so I was a bit of a tease. I couldn’t help it—his silent attention made me feel sexy. I shimmied into my night things, my shyness long forgotten.
“Are you trying to kill me?”
I lifted an eyebrow and tied the drawstrings of my shorts. “If I’d wanted to kill you, I’d have dropped the towel.”
Placing the book on his nightstand, he patted the bed. I climbed into his lap and gently kissed his lips. “It’s after midnight, Samuel. I know we’re still on West Coast time, but we really should try to sleep.”
“I should have put you in a hotel,” he groaned. “This is a lot harder than I thought it would be.”
I bit my lip, stifling my laughter. But it broke through anyway, and peals echoed through his apartment until tears blurred my sight. Samuel tossed me off his lap.
“And now you’ve killed that too, cruel woman.” He stretched his arms over his head then fumbled for the TV remote while I pulled the lamp chain.
It never was truly dark here, in the city. I settled against Samuel’s chest and absently toyed with his chest hair. It was quiet, save for the rumbles of cars and an occasional heavy bass blaring from cracked speakers. A cool breeze wafted through the open window and blew across our faces. It wasn’t a Midtown penthouse, but Samuel’s apartment still had an unreal view of the George Washington suspension bridge spanning the Hudson. At night, its lights glowed against the water like Christmas strands. Ripples pulsed with Latin beats floating down from northern blocks, and they lulled me. I could get used to gazing at the city with Samuel sprawled beneath me as I fell asleep.
“Kaye?” Samuel dragged a lazy thumbnail up my spine.
“Hmmm?”
“Thanks for watching my back. I know I wasn’t much help today.”
“No problem,” I mumbled into his chest.
“Just don’t do anything to compromise yourself, especially not for my sake. Okay?”
I nodded. “How is the piece of tabloid trash?”
He paused for so long, I nearly drifted to sleep. “Actually, Lyle’s book is good.”
“What do you mean?”
“The writing is clever. Engaging. I’ve only read the first twenty pages, but I can already tell it’s quality work.”
“But it’s a poison pen.”
“I don’t know if it is. And don’t forget, Caroline has the ace in her back pocket—my bipolar disorder—and she didn’t use it.”
I frowned, his quiet logic not making sense in my addled brain. “If you’re right, why would The Buitre Group and Berkshire House lie? What do they have to gain?”
“I have no clue. That’s what I find troubling.”
I sighed and tugged the covers tightly around our bodies. “We’ll get to the bottom of it tomorrow.”
Even though my heavy eyelids drew shut like magnets, alarms kicked in. If Samuel couldn’t write off this book—and Caroline Ortega—as money-grubbing tripe, then maybe I shouldn’t, either. At least not yet.
We spent the morning exploring the Cloisters, an annex of the Met which housed Medieval art. The Cloisters had been plucked from monasteries in Southern France and reassembled right in the middle of Fort Tryon Park, on a hill overlooking the Hudson.
While Samuel studied a gold-leafed gradual, I wandered into the next room. A handful of sarcophagi graced the walls, each topped with a depiction of its former occupant. Some were cracked, others missed noses and toes. I peered down at the figure of a robed lady, her stone face sanguine. Was she still inside her tomb? I thought not. After eight hundred years, she’d long since turned to dust.
As my finger ghosted over the woman’s aquiline nose, my thoughts strayed to Rachel Caulfield and her urn, resting prominently above her son’s fireplace. Maybe he felt guilty she’d been tucked away in a closet at the ancestral home in Boston—it would be a very “Samuel” sentiment. I watched him unawares…hands stuffed in
his pockets, rocking on his heels as he explored with unabashed curiosity, and glimpsed the boy I once knew. I was certain he’d used this place for inspiration in Water Sirens, and my heart lurched because he’d shared it with me.
He caught me staring. Smiling, he crossed the room and took my hand.
“Are you finished in here?”
I nodded.
“Come on, I’ll show you a bizarre plant in the garden called a Dragon Arum. It has this huge spadix that’s overtly phallic—the docent told me it’s supposedly an aphrodisiac.” He winked. Such a nerd.
“Why would monks grow aphrodisiacs?”
“They probably made a killing selling it. That, or it had another use, like curing constipation.”
“That’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.”
Hours later, we left the Cloisters and settled beneath a shade tree. Samuel paged through Togsy’s book while I flicked bread crumbs at fat sparrows hopping around our feet.
Aside from Togsy’s acerbic portrayal of Samuel as a spoiled man-diva who caved in to drugs and drove away his wife (which was a big “aside”) there was a lot to like about the memoir. It painted a witty portrait of destructive young writers living together before their careers skyrocketed or failed. Samuel called it an “Allen Ginsberg shakes hands with Evelyn Waugh” tale. I thought it sounded like a Rent rip-off, but hey.
Then there was the speculation around Samuel’s sexuality. Every time he came across one of those passages, he’d clench his jaw.
“My sexual preferences shouldn’t be a spectacle in the first place,” he muttered. “Why would they ruin a perfectly good book with this tabloid garbage?”
“Because tabloid garbage sells?”
“No. Caroline’s not a sell-out.”
“But maybe Togsy is and Caroline doesn’t want to rain on his parade.”
While he highlighted, I scrolled through over a hundred email forwards from Justin. Caroline had been looped in on everything. Viral stats on the latest Water Sirens movie trailer release. TV commercials that would air in a month. The original Water Sirens book re-release with a new cover that screamed: Now a major motion picture! And my favorite, a fast food promo deal featuring plastic cups with Indigo Kingsley’s curvaceous Neelie Nixie scaling the straw.
I’d hopped onto the world’s tallest roller coaster just as it began its wild descent, and now scrambled to buckle my safety harness. I dropped my phone and groaned into the blanket. Immersed in BrownStoners, Samuel thought I was sympathizing with him.
“Here’s another one,” he snarled. “‘Mr. Cabral sent Mrs. Cabral packing, though the method of disposal was needlessly complicated. The end of the marriage would have been less destructive had he chosen to embrace his true nature…instead of a feisty brunette co-ed. Thus, the bohemian prodigy found he was both spineless and wifeless. Also, sexless…’”
“He forgot ‘humorless,’” I teased.
“Flawless?” Samuel waggled his eyebrows.
“Tireless.”
He swatted my bottom. “Clueless.”
“Clothesless.” I crooked my finger.
Samuel growled, tugging me onto his chest. “Pointless. Come here, mean thing.”
For the rest of the afternoon, we enjoyed the last days of summer. I was now absolutely certain Caroline played Jaime and me like a pair of finger cymbals when we pulled the lesbian routine at the Lyons Diner. There was even an excerpt straight from Jaime’s big mouth about rainbow wigs and gay pride parades.
Soon, the sun began to sink behind the tree line. Samuel dragged his reading glasses from his face and we called it a day.
“So I guess we’re both in agreement the book isn’t a poison pen,” I said. “If anything, it’s a satirical shooting spree through the New York artist community. Unfortunately, you happen to be its biggest casualty.” I playfully shoved Samuel with my shoulder. “The question still is, why did Jerome and Lexi lie about the book?”
“Here’s a thought,” Samuel said as he swung our arms between us. “I hate to admit it, but BrownStoners has bestseller written all over it. And that’s the last thing Buitre wants, because it will financially make Caro’s new company. If she’s successful, she becomes competition with insider knowledge.”
I picked up his reasoning. “And Lexi claimed it was garbage, but maybe her true opinion is in line with yours. But the kicker is, there’s no way Berkshire House can pick up BrownStoners.”
“Not without publicly compromising my reputation.” Samuel caught my elbow before I tripped over a curb. “However, that doesn’t explain why they don’t want me to read the book.”
I snapped my fingers. “I know why. Because you’re a good guy.”
He jogged up his apartment building stairs and held the door open for me. “I’m not following.”
“You try to do the right thing, Samuel. You have industry clout and they want to keep you in their corner. They want to manipulate your anger to quash Togsy’s book—don’t you see? They trot out their nasty PowerPoint slides, get you breathing fire, and boom! The book goes down and so does Caroline. Unfortunately, I was the one who got angry. You were the picture of composure.” The elevator dinged. We waited for a couple in matching bowling uniforms to exit. When the doors closed, Samuel jocularly leaned into my side, then caught my waist to keep me from stumbling. He smelled like cut grass from the park.
“So you believe Buitre’s afraid that if I read the book and saw it was legit, I’d relent because I’m a good guy, and Caroline gets her bestseller,” he repeated, his voice tinted with humor. “Even though she supposedly sold me out.”
“I think so.” It seemed stupid when he spoke it. Or it may have been my brain short-circuiting when Samuel’s hip subtly brushed against mine. He kissed my nose, my lips, then released me as the doors opened to the eighth floor.
“That makes me sound like a pushover. Frankly, there’s a lot of objectionable crap in those pages and I’d rather it not see the light of day. I don’t want to know who submitted the supposed affidavits confirming that nonsense.”
“Well, I don’t particularly like being called a ‘waifish child-bride.’ If I ever see Togsy, he’ll get a kick to the groin.” Samuel shut the door behind me and began flicking on lights. Dropping my messenger bag on the table, I kicked off my shoes and wiggled my toes. “But I know from experience that nothing hinders a PR campaign like a hesitant client, so they get marginalized. It’s unethical and firms will never admit to it, but it happens. It’s all about control.”
“Or maybe they simply didn’t see the urgency in providing us with a copy. Maybe we’re being overly paranoid.”
I shook my head. “I know stonewalling when I see it. We never would have gotten that book…at least, not in its current form.”
Samuel plopped onto his sofa. He clasped his hands between his knees, head bent in quiet contemplation. At last, he raised resigned eyes.
“Kaye, I know how you feel about her, but I need to get Caroline’s side of the story. We’re missing something here.”
“You’re right.” I dropped down next to him and rested my head on his shoulder, ready to eat yesterday’s angry words. “There’s a problem, though. Short of sitting outside her Upper East Side place while poodles piss on our shoes, we have no way to contact her. None of her old numbers and email addresses work.”
A slow grin spread across Samuel’s face. “Yes we do. My cousin can track her down.”
“Can we trust Ace?”
“He’s never given me a reason not to.”
That evening, the call I’d dreaded finally came. Lexi Rogers. Before I even answered, I felt her ire bouncing from cell tower to cell tower.
“This is Kaye.”
“Ms. Trilby, my personal assistant just informed me you coerced him into sending you a copy of BrownStoners.”
“Hello, Ms. Rogers,” I said dryly.
“Did you, or did you not trick my PA?”
“I simply requested a copy of what you’d
already promised my client. He had some reading time today, so I thought—”
“I specifically told you the draft was not to leave my office.”
“Well, now it’s under lock-and-key in Samuel’s apartment.”
“This is risky.”
“Lexi—can I call you that? You truly have nothing to worry about. After reading it, I highly doubt he’ll want it making the rounds. It’s not exactly the trashy unauthorized bio your team portrayed, but it’s hardly kind to Samuel.”
There was a long stretch of silence, then what could have been a sigh of relief. “Jerome is going to be furious when he finds out we gave you the book.”
“Why should he be?” More silence. It was my turn to sigh. “I’ll be straight with you. I don’t know what sort of office politics all of you are playing behind Mr. Cabral’s back. But here’s a bit of advice—the less you involve my client in them, the better. If Jerome will be furious about the book, fine. Just don’t tell him.”
“Perhaps,” she replied, uncertain.
“Look, we’ll discuss it later this week.”
“Please remind Mr. Cabral that by the next meeting, he needs to decide whether he’s coming out. Our publicists have to know how to respond.”
I groaned. “He’s not gay, so it won’t be an issue. Thank you for calling.” I hung up before her anger recovered and she dragged me into a second round.
I heard Samuel laugh from the kitchen as he fixed dinner.
“That sounded like an interesting call.”
I scowled and picked a mushroom from the stir fry he tossed in a wok. “She had it coming.” I tried to steal another mushroom, but he batted my hand away. He returned my glare with a mock scowl of his own.
“So fierce.”
“Just hungry. And sick of this bull.”
“It’s only going to get worse, Kaye. If you want out—”
“No! I’m fine. I’m just not used to dealing with corporate bureaucracy, that’s all. My TrilbyJones staff is all I can handle.”
Skygods (Hydraulic #2) Page 25
